Mansfield prison fence topped with razor wire
Razor wire already is installed over the tops of gates at the Bergin Correctional Institution. Now it will run along the top and bottom of the entire perimeter fence. Photo © HTNP.com
People driving along Route 44 in Mansfield this afternoon may have wondered what was being delivered to the Bergin Correctional Institution in a big truck. Inside the boxes being unloaded from the truck was a new shipment of razor wire.
The minimum-security prison currently has a row of razor wire - also known as razor ribbon - circling the base of the compound’s perimeter fence. This new shipment will be installed along the top of the fence.
“This is the final phase of a security enhancement initiated some time ago, but because of budget issues, we were put at the end of the list,” Deputy Warden of Operations James Foley said today.
New razor wire being installed on March 25. Photo © HTNP.com
He noted that the prison - which currently houses 1,082 inmates - needs additional razor wire to keep potential escapees from gaining access to the fence. “It is easy to defeat a single row of razor wire at the bottom,” he said.
“And we don’t have the same amount of personnel” as similar institutions, Foley said.
There have been no escapes from the prison in at least the past two years, he said.
Unfinished project
The subject of adding more razor wire to the prison fence was originally raised in January 2006. At that time, the Town Council passed a motion to support the state Department of Transportation’s plans to install a double row of “razor ribbon” - on the ground - along the interior of the fence.
The project was budgeted for $69,000, to be paid from the Department of Correction’s budget.
However, the DOC installed only one layer of razor ribbon at that time.
And so the question came back to the Town Council at its July 23, 2007 meeting.
Map of prison indicating perimeter fence.
In a July 18 memo to the council, Town Manager Matt Hart noted that adding the razor wire would not change the classification of the prison - something that had concerned town leaders and residents in the past.
“The demographics of the inmate population at Bergin Correctional Institution are not changing. This is an improvement meant to enhance public safety, to assist the Bergin staff in doing their jobs, and to maintain the integrity of Bergin’s re-entry mission,” Hart’s memo states.
Changes since 1989
The Bergin Correctional Institution is what’s known as a pre-release center. It’s a minimum-security or Level 2 facility whose purpose is to transition inmates who are coming to the end of their sentence back into the community.
When the prison first opened on March 13, 1989 - in buildings that previously served the Mansfield Training School - it was known as the Northeast Correctional Institution.
Its original population was 248 male inmates. The original agreement with the town was to cap the population at 350 inmates, and to not include those serving sentences for sexual crimes.
In 1997, under a reorganization and consolidation program, the prison was closed but it reopened two years later, in February 1999 because of prison overcrowding. At that time, it housed 500 inmates.
In January of 2001, after an expanded facility was constructed, the inmate population increased to an average of 650 inmates. And on Feb. 3, 2001 the name was officially changed to the Donald T. Bergin Correctional Institution.
Boxes of razor wire waiting to be unpacked and installed. Photo © HTNP.com
On July 18, the town’s Public Safety Committee - which serves as a liaison with the prison - voted unanimously to support a new request from the DOC to place that second stretch of razor wire along the top of the perimeter fence and a fence surrounding a baseball field.
The Town Council then approved that plan at its July 23, 2007 meeting.
Posted March 25, 2009
2 Responses to “Mansfield prison fence topped with razor wire”
Federal and State Prisons are overcrowded and costly to taxpayers. In California for example, they have an average of 33 prisons that are filled with about 153,000 inmates living off the taxpayers.
Lawmakers and their legal system have pressed the courts for decades to put these criminals behind bars at taxpayers’ expense. Now that the California prisons are overcrowded and becoming too much to support, the legal system and California government officials are considering a new law that will reduce the prison population in three-years to a staggering 55,000 prisoners.
We now have a prison recidivism rate of 70-to-90-percent in one to three-years. That means those 98,000 criminals will walk out of prisons free to commit more crimes, putting law-enforcement officers in danger again trying to re-arrest the same criminals and put them through their penal system at taxpayers’ expense.
Gang wars are taking over our society like butter melting over a hot stove. Our prisons are infested with gangs that come from ghettos of our society. Prisons officials and lawmakers cannot stop these gangs from continuing their crimes in prisons.
Preparing prisoners to reform in today’s prisons without re-socializing them is hypocritical and life-threatening. But it keeps the taxpayer’s money flowing into the system and this does not seem to bother the fathers of our justice system and lawmakers, who keep pushing for more laws to protect criminal rights.
I worked in an all-male maximum-security prison for almost three decades, and I say with experience and sound mind that behind those prison walls is a failing prison system that’s contaminated with flaws and embedded with unthinking, unknowing, or corrupt officials and political bureaucrats.
Correctional officers have been downgraded from being the backbone of the prison system to glorified babysitters, living in fear of violating criminal’s rights and the use of force when trying to protect themselves - this is not what prisons were intended for.
“A Nightmare from Hell” is how I describe working in one of the most dangerous prisons in the country, The Elmira Correctional Facility. I survived working in this prison system in New York State as a vocational instructor, dealing with murderers, rapists, and pedophiles, drug pushers, mentally disturbed and non-violent inmates of all ages.
With the loss of positive leadership in our prisons came the increase of prisoner’s power, primarily caused by their ability to hide behind highly-defended “Civil Rights”, which has now taken precedence above all else. These rights allow them to live without fear of strong retribution for their actions, thereby leading to a breakdown in inmate behavior and resulting in riots, fights, and physical and verbal abuse of prison workers.
- John J. Pecchio is the author of Hell Behind Prison Walls and The Devil’s Den Of Prison And Justice
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Comment made on March 26th, 2009 at 4:06 amAs the prison population grows, you will most certainly see the Bergin Correctional Institute be reclassified as a level-3 facility. There can be no other reason for razor wire being installed there. As stated in the article, the offenders that are housed there are supposed to be non-violent and are pre-release. There have been no escapes in at least two years. Mark my words, within six months of the complete installation of the wire, you will see level 3-inmates, even if the prison is not reclassified. Ask your friends and neighbors if this is acceptable!
Comment made on April 6th, 2009 at 9:22 amLeave a Comment